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Bill Thompson wrote:I may offer up a few spotlights later, but I'm still a bit vague as to how that works and whether or not to dip my toe into that pool.

It's just a way to encourage people to see certain films you feel are special or essential but that may get overlooked, or perhaps aren't well known. Just post some films and indicate that they are your "spotlights," and maybe say some words in their favour, and those will be added to the member spotlight section in the first post. It's generally nice to see as many of the spotlights as possible.

Spotlight Titles

The first three are each only like 10 minutes long, so shouldn't be too difficult to fit in.

"Sredni Vashtar" by Saki (David Bradley, 1940) - available on Disc 4 of the Unseen Cinema set
Falling Pink (Robert Spring, 1959) - available on Kino's Avant-Garde 3 set
Nothing's much creepier than amateur homemade horror.

The Man with Wax Faces (Maurice Tourneur, 1914) - hosting a copy here
You will forgive the protagonist for his folly of agreeing to spend the night in a wax museum, as they had only recently been invented probably and science had not yet determined that all of them are terribly haunted. The existing print for this is really deteriorated, which I like to think of as just more ghosts invading the film from another dimension, exactly as explained in Painlevé's The Fourth Dimension.

Der Student von Prag (Arthur Robison, 1935)
See what I wrote for the '30s list here.

swo17 wrote: The Man with Wax Faces (Maurice Tourneur, 1914)
The existing print for this is really deteriorated, which I like to think of as just more ghosts invading the film from another dimension, exactly as explained in Painlevé's The Fourth Dimension.

Yes! Definitely a major highlight of my pre-1920 viewings for this reason alone

Nice still! Question for domino: How are you counting Riget? I believe for the last '90s list we grandfathered it in as both a film under the miniseries rule and as a single entity under the two-part rule.

Well, it looks like this is going to be an interesting project, as our tastes in horror movies seem to be even more idiosyncratic than our tastes elsewhere. I'd expect domino's tastes to be the polar opposite of mine, but that's a really useful list anyway, even if I'm more likely to be checking out the films he panned! The interesting thing about some of the other recommendations is that I agree with a number of the selections and then there are others I've seen but which have struck me as perfectly ordinary and unremarkable (I'm sorry to say that among their number is the highly esteemed City of the Dead.) So it will be interesting to see where the consensus settles (though I expect it will be with films I can't abide like The Shining.)

I'm worried that we'll wind up with the most boring choice, Psycho, but I'm willing to play along. Though so far everyone seems to have different tastes from me (for instance the two Craven's and Carpenter's Domino panned are the most likely to get on my list).

knives wrote:I'm worried that we'll wind up with the most boring choice, Psycho, but I'm willing to play along.

It's damnably inconvenient that it's such a great film, isn't it?

Actually I probably wouldn't put it in my top five horror Hitch's. It's great, but not top fifty so. Personally I'm rooting for Strangers on a Train, though Rebecca and Suspicion are also favorites.

I'm going to try to give a comprehensive run-down of Hammer Horror as this thing goes along. I'll start it off by highlighting one of the areas of Hammer that tends to get overshadowed by the more iconic films, very much undeservedly. Recommended titles in red.

Mini-Hitchcocks:

Starting in the early sixties, veteran Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster scripted what would later be called the Mini-Hitchcocks: black-and-white psychological thrillers that favoured mood and atmosphere over gothic theatrics and often featured narratives that blurred the line between reality and madness. The first of them is Taste/Scream of Fear (Seth Holt, 1961), an expertly made suspense film about a crippled girl who is mysteriously summoned back home by her estranged father only to become plagued by frightening visions of people who may or may not be dead. Often nerve-wracking, with moments of eerie beauty. Next came Maniac (Michael Carreras, 1963), in which a man stranded in a small French town falls in love with the local innkeeper and, for rather fuzzy reasons, helps break her husband out of a mental hospital. The couple thinks the husband has escaped to sea, but he may or may not have returned to torment them. Spends a lot of time on the melodrama of its set-up and not enough on creating suspense. The result is that it lacks the visual energy and atmosphere of its predecessor. Reknowned cinematographer Freddie Francis, fresh off his work on The Innocents, helmed the next three entries. The first is Paranoiac (Freddie Francis, 1963), an odd film even for this series. It seems at first like a straightforward story about a long-lost brother who returns to claim the family inheritance and may or may not be who he says he is, but the film becomes increasingly bizarre and unpredictable as it goes along. I think it's so successful because the obligatory plot twists don't try to radically alter the viewer's perception of the narrative so much as reveal the perversions and morbidities hidden underneath that narrative. One of Hammer's best. Next is Nightmare (Freddie Francis, 1964), a brilliant movie that I wrote about here. It and Paranoia are easily the high points of the series. Francis ended his tenure in the series with Hysteria (Freddie Francis, 1965), and it's decent enough, if not up to the level of his previous two entries. An amnesia patient attempts to discover not just his own identity but that of the mysterious benefactors who paid for his medical bills and provided him with his own penthouse suite. The twists in this one refigure the narrative too radically for my taste, and the 'is he or isn’t he mad?' formula gets a bit worn by this point in the series. Still expertly made and required viewing. Fanatic aka Die, Die my Darling (Silvio Narizzano, 1965) followed, one of Hammer's few additions to the psycho-biddy sub-genre, with Tallulah Bankhead as the bonkers old crone. Unlike the previous mini-Hitchcocks, this one is in colour and was scripted by someone other than Sangster (Richard Matheson does duties here). A woman is held hostage by a religious fanatic intent on saving her soul. The movie is pitched somewhere between a parody and a regular thriller, but never manages to balance its tone. It's also a stock-pile of different cliches and sticks so closely to the routine that there's nothing you don't see coming five miles off. I thought it was dull. The Nanny (Seth Holt, 1965) was Hammer's second entry in the psycho-biddy sub-genre, but unlike the majority of them, this is a quiet, restrained movie that uses its often understated performances, Bette Davis' especially, to suggest all sorts of nasty possibilities and to generally create an unsettling atmosphere. Davis returned for The Anniversary (Roy Ward Baker, 1968). A gruesome matriarch lords it over her spineless children. It's 95 minutes of overacting from a cast of characters competing to see who's the most insufferable, with a tone pitched at a near screech without any variation or relief. An unbelievably grating movie. Crescendo (Alan Gibson, 1970) is a tedious young-girl-meets-intrigue-in-an-old-house story. It vies with Lust for a Vampire as Hammer's worst 70's film. Fear in the Night (Jimmy Sangster, 1972) is an attempt to recapture the spirit of Hammer's earlier suspense thrillers. Despite some eerie touches (the sound of children in otherwise empty classrooms, everything Peter Cushing) the whole thing feels routine and not very thrilling. Straight on Till Morning (Peter Collinson, 1972) is a weird and disturbing story about a child-like woman becoming romantically involved with an equally child-like serial killer with a Peter Pan fetish. The first act is composed similar to Nicholas Roeg's films from the period (it was edited by Roeg's Walkabout editor, Alan Pattillo ), with past and present colliding together in a montage of images and sounds. The editing settles down for the remaining two thirds as the leads grow into their cloistered, emotionally stunted co-habitation. The ambiguous climax is brutal and disturbing without even a shred of violence or action--just sound. As un-like a Hammer film as you could imagine, and more interesting than, say, Demons of the Mind, a similar attempt by the company to be offbeat. Summary: Everything up to Hysteria, as well as The Nanny and Straight on Till Morning, is worth watching. Nightmare, Paranoiac, and maybe Scream of Fear will make my list.

I'm shocked you didn't name what's probably my favorite of their Hitchcock riffs, The Snorkel, which deserves it's uncharacteristic ending.

knives wrote:I'm shocked you didn't name what's probably my favorite of their Hitchcock riffs, The Snorkel, which deserves it's uncharacteristic ending.

Haven't seen it (can't find a copy), plus I've never heard it mentioned as being among the so-called mini-Hitchcocks.

It's in the Sony released Icons of Suspense set (which also has one of the best Christmas movies ever in the form of Cash on Demand). I highly recommend it and the whole set though only about three of the titles are actually horror with the rest being crime and courtroom drama (though the courtroom film is easily the most disturbing).

Sausage already gave some great guides to the Universal horror films in the decades list, but a little reminder at least for the Frankenstein's never hurt. First off was Whale's adpatation of the stage play, not the book. The toned down nature especially compared to what was to come later might leave one unsatisfied, but this quiet film has a lot to offer still. Most interesting to me is the set design which at first looks odd, but after watching it so many times I've noticed that more than an expressionism call back it is very much a commentary of Victor's insanity. Much of the film actually looks normal and could be used on any period piece, except for Frankenstein's lab with it's odd angels and bizarre depth of field. In many ways it's a cubist nightmare with a little bit of Munch squeezed in. A shot like Fritz hanging is enough to send shivers up ones spine. The acting too is worth it's legendary status with Clive, Karloff, and the sadly mostly forgotten Dwight Fry making up a fascinating trio that never steps over each other and keeps up the web that the production design sets up. No one else in the movie acts quite like them, but that doesn't mean they don't give great performances with Mae Clarke doing an admirable job and Edward Van Sloane doing a better van Helsing here than he did in the actual Dracula film.

Of course all of that goes out the window with the next film, and my personal number one of the genre, Bride of Frankenstein. This film takes everything great about the first and expands it through the book launching into a dying gothic nightmare. The set design and overall feeling of rot saved for Victor in the first film has invaded the film's world at large showing the much more dangerous psychology on display by all of the characters. With all of this said the film with it's listless and insane storyline winds up as much as a camp comedy in the vein of John Waters as it is a horror picture. Of particular note is Ernest Thesiger's outrageous Dr. Pretorius who's a maniacal delight in what I feel is the definitive made scientist performance. Everything about the film becomes more specific to Whale's concerns here and all for the better. As essential a picture, horror or not that you'll find.

Next and the last of the A pictures is Son of Frankenstein. I'm not as fond of Karloff's last outing as the monster as some, but even I'll admit it has it's charm as an entity completely separate from the first two films. The strength here is entirely in the two new comers Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi with one of his best characters the now immortal Ygor. Rathbone's not as good here as he was in director Rowland V. Lee's previous Tower of London, but he still gives a straitlaced charm that's very different from Colin Clive's out of this world performance. To pick up on the over acting though Lugosi gives a charming and hilarious performance that he mingles with some sadness. If you need anymore proof of the man's talent just look here at this do nothing part that he exploits with maximum efficiency. The big problem is the runtime as the longest in the series it stretches longer than it's story will take it and occasionally collapses under it's own weight.

Soon after the series would take the dive to B pictures with Ghost of Frankenstein directed by new forum favorite Erle C. Kenton and having Lon Chaney Jr. take up Karloff's mantle. That's the biggest problem though as this mute beast plays against all of Chaney's strengths so he only livens up to be more than a bedpost in the climax of the film. Chaney as an actor needs his face and voice to gain that infinite sadness and loser quality that he perfected as Larry Talbot. No such luck here, but fortunately this is the Ygor show and much of the films run time is just showing Lugosi be as scheming and nasty as can be which is a charm in itself and is enough for me to feel that the film is more enjoyable than it's predecessor if no where near as good.

We take a step forward and take many steps back with the first of the Universal monster mashups Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. This time heralded by Sherlock Homes maestro Roy William Neil and having Lugosi of all people in the lead role this film is just goofy and silly and not at all good. That's okay though as the film at least makes good on it's promise with both title characters getting plenty of time and the film ending in an absurd rumble. The one genuinely good thing about this film and all the rest in the series is Lon Chaney who as I said before can be a great actor when people aren't trying to make him the next Karloff.

There's not much to say about the next two in the series, House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula respectively, with Kenton returning as director and Glen Strange as the monster now. The funny thing about Strange is that he's tied with Karloff as appearing the most times as the monster with his third portrayal being in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein. He's terrible as the character for all the reasons Chaney was and there's not much mroe to say. They're terrible incoherent films that benefit only from Chaney and a fun atmosphere. They're also damn repetitive hitting all of the familiar notes and bringing nothing new to the table. There's some new fun in House of Dracula with Onslow Stevens getting his Jekyll and Hyde on, but overall the series ends on two dull flat notes.

Blimey, people have been busy... I suppose I'd better fish out my old thesis to remind me what I wrote about Amicus...

Anyway, neither City of the Dead nor The Monster Club are actually Amicus films. City is (IIRC) Vulcan - Rosenberg was a producer and Subotsky was brought in to work on the script (they had already been making films together before this though - just not as Amicus). However, it gets covered in most histories of Amicus (including my thesis) so I'll let it pass. It's a great film though and was one of the first 'Amicus' films I ever saw. Other fans should head over to the Brit Movie Forums where John Moxey often posts and is always happy to answer questions.

Equally, Monster Club is AFTER Amicus was wound up and Subotsky and Rosenberg were, apparently, not on speaking terms. This was originally released in the UK as an 'A' (PG) certificate film and marketed as a kids horror film. I haven't watched it recently, but it is almost certainly superior to the other Subotsky originated anthology of the period, The Uncanny, with Peter Cushing telling stories about evil cats to Ray Milland. Very weak indeed - it really feels like a compilation of the worst episodes from earlier anthologies.

I'll come back to Amicus later, but in the meantime here are a couple of spotlights:

Psychomania (1973, Don Sharp). Gloriously barking British horror which mixes in bike gangs, black magic, standing stones, George Sanders and Beryl Reid - and still manages to be vaguely coherent. A genuinely fascinating one off which would make an interesting double bill with Hammer's earlier Losey film, The Damned.

The Sorcerors (1967, Michael Reeves). Overshadowed by Reeves's next film, the magnificent Witchfinder General, this is nonetheless a great swinging London film (rather better than Hammer's later 70s set Draculas). Karloff develops a device that enables him to control Ian Ogilvie from afar - but he and especially his wife become overly obsessed with this new found youth and freedom. Make this a double bill with Amicus's Scream and Scream Again for a great double bill of swinging body snatching.

Also, a couple of book recommendations on British Horror. David Pirie's A Heritage of Horror is essential, the standard work on the subject - even though it dates from 1973. He's recently updated it, but I don't know to what extent. Anyway, this is the defining work, especially with respect to Hammer and Fisher, although more detailed and comprehensive material is now available. More recently, Jonathan Rigby's English Gothic is an intelligent survey of British horror and is equally essential (although he is not really an Amicus fan...). A straightforward history / summary of the field it's solid, intelligent film criticism and he covers just about everything.

Dr. Amicus wrote:Anyway, neither City of the Dead nor The Monster Club are actually Amicus films. City is (IIRC) Vulcan - Rosenberg was a producer and Subotsky was brought in to work on the script (they had already been making films together before this though - just not as Amicus). However, it gets covered in most histories of Amicus (including my thesis) so I'll let it pass. It's a great film though and was one of the first 'Amicus' films I ever saw. Other fans should head over to the Brit Movie Forums where John Moxey often posts and is always happy to answer questions.

I'll admit I was guilty of a bit of "Subotsky...Rosenberg...Amicus!" reasoning when putting these together (that and I think wikipedia lead me astray on the Monster Club). I was putting together stuff on so many films that it was easy to make an assumption and move on. Thanks for the correction. I look forward to hearing more from you on Amicus--I find their output fascinating, even the stuff I think is uneven (I, Monster,--And Now the Screaming Starts).

Hammer Films presents: Dracula and Frankenstein.

Recommended titles in red.

Dracula Cycle:

After the surprise success of Curse of Frankenstein, Hammer reassembled the team to adapt Dracula using the same formula. The result was The Horror of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1958), a bloody and brightly lit gothic that still deserves its reputation as one of the great Dracula adaptations. It's one of those films where everything comes together, helped in no small measure by the iconic performances, Terence Fisher's tightly controlled direction, and Jimmy Sangster's script, which goes out of its way to confound the expectations of those familiar with the Dracula story. Taking Universal's lead, Hammer's first Dracula sequel, The Brides of Dracula (Terence Fisher, 1960), doesn't feature Dracula at all, nor even his brides for that matter. The actual link to the first is the presence of Van Helsing, once again played by the superb Peter Cushing. Nearly as good as Horror, this one exudes the trademark Hammer atmosphere and has a rousing climax courtesy of Fisher, who is underrated as an action director. Christopher Lee returned in the third sequel, Dracula: Prince of Darkness (Terence Fisher, 1966). I've heard it criticized as slow, but I find it fleet and absorbing. Dracula doesn't show up for the first forty or so minutes, so instead what you're treated to is a moody atmosphere and a sense of progressively ratcheting tension that culminates in a surprisingly bloody resurrection. Dracula Has Risen from the Grave (Freddie Francis, 1968) is oddly good for a fourth sequel in a horror franchise. It's a solid reworking of all the familiar elements from the previous three. Nothing really new, but director Francis adds some nice touches, like using a yellow/orange gel filter whenever Dracula appears that saturates the edges of the frame with odd colours. Christopher Lee, as per usual, commands the screen every second he's on it. Taste the Blood of Dracula (Peter Sasdy, 1970) was originally planned as a vehicle for Ralph Bates, an actor Hammer would try several times to turn into its new star; but at the last minute it was decided that Dracula should actually appear, so here we are. More a supernatural revenge film than a Dracula movie, its chief interest lies in the way it attacks conservative institutions and social roles, especially that of the patriarchal family, by revealing the hypocrisy and vice that these institutions serve to mask. The Dracula franchise began its slide into mediocrity starting with Scars of Dracula (Roy Ward Baker, 1970). Hammer was now trying to lure audiences to this old franchise with lurid subject matter and deliberate bad taste (Dracula is resurrected when a vampire bat vomits blood on his ashes, for instance). Despite Christopher Lee having more lines in this film than the last three combined, he doesn't do much, spending the whole movie sitting in his castle waiting for over-sexed youths to stumble by. Filled with lame, Carry-On style comedy and annoying characters. Things get even worse with Dracula A.D. 1972 (Alan Gibson, guess when), an attempt to take the series in a more contemporary direction. It's Dracula meets mod youth basically, except the worst thing these rebels get up to is crashing stuffy parties and dancing to loud music. One of them even proudly declares that none of them drink, do drugs, or have sex. They do manage to raise Dracula from the dead during a seance, tho', so I guess they're not completely lame. Christopher Lee and a returning Peter Cushing do their best to lend things an air of class, but even they can't save this terrible movie. Christopher Lee makes his final appearance in The Satanic Rights of Dracula (Alan Gibson, 1973), which is actually a step-up from the last two. It's a cross between a Dracula film and a spy thriller. Oddly enough it works, even if it's still not as good as the first five. The series finishes up with the deliriously goofy Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (Roy Ward Baker, 1974), a co-production between Hammer and Shaw Brothers, with the directorial efforts shared between Roy Ward Baker and an uncredited Chang Cheh. It's a horror/kung fu movie, and, yes, it's every bit as ridiculous as the concept suggests. The action scenes come every ten minutes and are surprisingly bloody. The scenes of vampires clawing their way out of the earth and assembling into a war-party are fantastic, as is the grand-Guignol production-design. It's a lot of fun. Summary: the first five are must-sees. I know that at least Horror and Prince of Darkness will make my list.


Frankenstein Cycle:

Hammer had had some success in the fifties with eerie science fiction films like the Quatermass adaptations and X: The Unknown, but what really launched the company was the surprise success of The Curse of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher, 1957), a reimagining of the Frankenstein story. Universal demanded that Hammer not copy their version, forcing Hammer to rethink the story. Here the focus isn't on the monster but on the evolution of Victor Frankenstein from eager chemistry student to amoral opportunist. I actually found this one a bit tough to get through the last time I saw it, but I have to concede its merits: it looks good, Peter Cushing is great as always, and Christopher Lee's makeup is really ghoulish. Revenge of Frankenstein (Terence Fisher, 1959) picks up where Curse left off, with Frankenstein abandoning his experiments in human-building in favour of experimenting with the transfer of live brains to dead bodies. Frankenstein continues his slide into inhumanity. An excellent movie, much better than its predecessor. For some reason Hammer abandoned story continuity with The Evil of Frankenstein (Freddie Francis, 1964) in favour of making a sequel to a movie that doesn't exist. It includes a lengthy flashback to events that never happened in Curse, then picks up with Frankenstein locating and reviving what the movie now supposes is his original monster (poorly made-up to look like Karloff). Frankenstein is a nicer character here. The make-up effects are terrible, tho', and honestly the movie isn't that good. The series hit its high point with Frankenstein Created Woman (Terence Fisher, 1967). It's interesting to see how the character of Frankenstein shifts with each new movie: here he's a much more benevolent and outwardly kind person who nevertheless shows at times a total lack of human sympathy. The story is surprisingly moving, with the tragic fate and perverse resurrection of a pair of damaged lovers providing the main thrust. One of Hammer's strangest and greatest films. Hammer would equal this entry with the following one, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (Terence Fisher, 1969). Here Frankenstein is the outright villain, a frightening sociopath who cunningly and ruthlessly manipulates the people around him for his own personal gain. He essentially blackmails a promising young couple into doing the heinous things that will allow him to continue his experiments. Cushing gives one of his best performances. It's incredible the range he had: he could go from playing the sweetest, kindest people who you wouldn't believe capable of the slightest ill-feeling (apparently how he was in real life) and then turn around and play with the utmost conviction characters of a frightening inhumanity. It's a joy to watch him effortlessly dominate the other characters in the story. Unfortunately, the movie is marred by a literally unnecessary rape scene that the producers demanded be included during filming despite Cushing's protestations. Since the rest of the script was left unaltered, the movie continues on as if it had never happened, making it all the more off-putting since it's never dealt with. An unfortunate blot on a great movie. Hammer's next entry, The Horror of Frankenstein (Jimmy Sangster, 1970), isn't a sequel but a burlesque of the first film. Here Ralph Bates plays Frankenstein, and it isn't five minutes before he's cavalierly offing people. It has a bad reputation, but I think it's kind of fun. Bates gives a wry, bemused performance, and the film's clearly having fun with itself. The series finishes with Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (Terence Fisher, 1974), and it's a quality entry. Frankenstein has taken over a mental asylum and is performing experiments on the patients. It's clear that the wear of his years as a criminal has eroded his sanity, yet he presses on with his increasingly incoherent experiments. The make-up effects aren't good, but the story is well told by series veteran Terence Fisher. Summary: with the exception of Evil and Horror, every one of these is essential viewing. Woman and Destroyed will make my list.

f

While I'm not a fan of Prince of Darkness, Sausage, the thing that fascinates me about it greatly is how much it's structured like a slasher film rather than your typical Dracula (or even monster) movie. We get the four personality types that make for disposable victims and great atmosphere. I have to admit on Scars I like it a lot, though almost only for the 2nd Doctor who does a regular Lugosi with his part.

I have to say though that I think Hammer's crowning achievement is the Frankenstein saga particularly the Fisher helmed entries. The evolution of that character over the movies is so powerful it would not be matched again in film until the last decade or so of television. The manner in which he goes from brash, young, arrogant man trying to play god to an elderly sad man trying to accomplish something good rather than trying to further himself before finally succumbing to the evil of his actions is so fascinating that I don't think I've ever been bored with it (not even the trying to hard to appear cool Frankenstein Must be Destroyed comes off without huge merits). The one thing I've noticed about the series versus Universal's is that the older films tended to be on the side of those who felt there were places man must not go while the Hammer films see honor in what he's trying to do, just not how he comes to it and why. It's a really pleasant twist that I think greatly improves on the films. Keeping on the topic of Frankensteins I can't urge people enough to check out the '73 Frankenstein adaptation starring Michael Sarrazin as the creature. It's easily the closest to the source material and surprisingly frightening and well done for what I believe was a made for teevee movie.

As to Tarpilot, I'm actually going to watch the Ulmer this weekend so good to know it's such. Also, I suppose it's annoying to harp on this, but I enjoy the most about The Hitcher is how it cushions all of the eroticism in the context of a vampire film, without actually having Rutger Hauer be one. It was a common trope even by that point, but I think the film gives the freshest spin to it since, well the last time Red wrote a vampire script.

swo17 wrote:Nice still! Question for domino: How are you counting Riget? I believe for the last '90s list we grandfathered it in as both a film under the miniseries rule and as a single entity under the two-part rule.

Sounds good to me

Onto the Romero Zombie quadrilogy. Now he has directed six (technically seven) zombie films, but his most recent two are considered part of a different series and by all accounts are not good to be polite.

All that said Romero does start off with a monstrous bang with Night of the Living Dead. It's far from the first gore picture (and not even the best if you go down to Brazil with Coffin Joe), but it really did put the genre into the spotlight and made it a mainstream studio approved attraction. The big thing about this film and Romero in general is how he mixes social critiques with the pulpiest of material. The real secret being that he does his absolute best with this when he does it entirely by accident. For example much of the film can be seen as a commentary on race relations in the '60s, but that only exists due to the casting of Duane Jones (who's easily the best actor here and gives an other essential performance in the sadly underrated Ganja & Hess). That said Romero lets his pulpy juices fly around so even if the more profound things here are by accident the film still remains fun.

Jumping straight past fun into aesthetic greatness is Dawn of the Dead which is a heftier film all around. The script is better, the budget larger, Tom Savini is on board in one of his first films (previously working on Romero's masterpiece Martin), and the acting is excellent across the board. Once again the social critique that makes up most of the criticism on the film is by accident (the setting of the mall was chosen after the script was written and only because a friend owned it). So to look at the aesthetics the film trades in Matheson style pulp for comic book goo. The film is filled with bright reds and yellows and edited so tightly to feel like high quality Frank Miller (tends to be an oxymoron I know). Once again our lead, this time Ken Foree as a military man, lifts the whole thing on his shoulders so even in the more outlandish moments (the climax especially is filled with what were they thinking type things) the movie has a secure seriousness that drives the emotional core just perfectly.

For what for the longest time felt like finally comes Day of the Dead which while great in it's own right is a step down from Dawn and a true showing of where Romero would go. Miraculously the film succeeds despite getting the beginning brunt of two problems that plague the man to this day. The first is Star Wars, or to be more accurate the world he has been in after Star Wars. The explosion of blockbuster cinema had turned the sort of film Romero specialized in into a relic of the past something the never liked to be pigeon held director probably liked at first. The problem was really compounded with the fact that had in fact been pigeon held by financiers as that Zombie guy (despite only making three such movies of a period of nearly two decades. This meant that he couldn't get the projects he wanted made as producers only wanted zombie movies while at the same time he couldn't get the budgets for zombie movies because they weren't viable money makers. Fortunately Romero uses this weakness as a strength in Day of the Dead keeping things smaller than they had ever been by making the main setting an underground chamber. The atmosphere is full of suffocation and you really smell the rot burning off the walls. Not to mention the isolation and mixture of personalities really gives good reason to go mad. Romero has never been more successful at making it not just look like the end of the world, but also that there's no hope in it.

The one other problem Romero faced that really didn't become a weakness until the final chapter Land of the Dead is his own hubris. I've mentioned already how much of the critical looking ons for Romero has been on supposed social criticisms and the man himself certainly isn't blind to those comments. So instead of allowing that genius to come accidentally and naturally he pushes it on here becoming horror's Oliver Stone. The film is a blunt and uncreative middle finger to the Bush administration which would be fine if he did anything more than just repeat the news. Hopper's a real shinning light playing Dick Chenney in the Bush role. He gives the film a lot of the comic book fun that it is sorely crying out for. The rest of the film is a forgettable mess of things Romero had done before and better (an attempt to reprise the genuinely genius and affecting Bud storyline from Day of the Dead winds up being another news reading). It's not that the film is bad, but that it is almost entirely forgettable. A weak way to end a truly great series.

Night of the Living Dead is the shoo-in for my top spot. It traumatized me terribly when I was a kid (I still suffer the occasional recurring nightmare), and is still one of the few movies I'm wary of watching alone at night. It has a raw, unflinching power that pushes me into the back of my seat. The situation is such a nightmare; it has no qualms about going straight into the most unpleasant territory; all the rules of horror that let you feel safe and secure and comfortable are absent. And that ending...

It's not the most thematically weighty of the tetralogy, but it is, for me, the most effective.

knives wrote:...

Phew...

"Technically seven"? Are you counting The Crazies? So by "his most recent two" you mean Diary and Survival. Not true at all that "by all accounts" they are not good. Many have praised Diary, and I also thought it was extremely well done, and a step up from Land. (I haven't seen Survival.) I'm not sure who considers those two part of a different series or cycle, or why they would.

The social-political commentary in the films has never been "entirely by accident," the result of happenstance in casting or locations. It was all completely intentional on Romero's part. He's been far more explicit in discussing his "agenda" than most other directors, so there's really no doubt about this.
Romero's friend showed him the mall that became the setting for Dawn, which planted the seeds of inspiration for the screenplay, so I don't think the chronology you mention is accurate. Anyway, the social critique doesn't just come from the mall setting; it has to do with the way Romero conceives of the entire zombie concept and the relations among the four principal characters.

Re: Night of the Living Dead as a pioneering "gore" film, it was certainly groundbreaking in some respects, but I'm not sure I'd put it in quite the same subgenre as earlier works by Herschell Gordon Lewis, which were much more in the gore/splatter mold, though that's more debatable. I believe Blood Feast was the early crossover in the gore vein.

I'm afraid I can't make much sense of any of the rest of this overview.

Mr Sausage wrote:Night of the Living Dead is the shoo-in for my top spot. It traumatized me terribly when I was a kid (I still suffer the occasional recurring nightmare), and is still one of the few movies I'm wary of watching alone at night. It has a raw, unflinching power that pushes me into the back of my seat. The situation is such a nightmare; it has no qualms about going straight into the most unpleasant territory; all the rules of horror that let you feel safe and secure and comfortable are absent. And that ending...

It's not the most thematically weighty of the tetralogy, but it is, for me, the most effective.

Maybe I just didn't see it at the right time, but I found it fascinating more for the character interactions than for the scares. The way that Jones interacts with that one asshole (who turns out to be right all along) makes the film such a joy for me though for Romero my heart is settled on Martin.

As to Gregory, you're the first positive word I've heard on Diary.

knives wrote:Maybe I just didn't see it at the right time, but I found it fascinating more for the character interactions than for the scares. The way that Jones interacts with that one asshole (who turns out to be right all along)

Does he? The only reason they don't get away in the truck is that the one dude suddenly turns ludicrously incompetent- there was nothing wrong with the plan there, for sure.

knives wrote:Onto the Romero Zombie quadrilogy.

Tetralogy

(I think I'll just do this from now on, in between tilting at windmills.)